Police: Weapons, alcohol found at Merrillville daycare, owner charged

MERRILLVILLE, Ind. (WLS) -- Ammunition and knives were recovered from a northwest Indiana daycare.

Police were called to the Merrillville, Ind., home after a four-year-old child was found bleeding from the head.

One mother said she was horrified. She said her son had been coming to the home daycare for a few months and recently started to tell her that bad things were happening inside.

The home, on 53rd Avenue in Merrillville looked unassuming. A woman named Tawana Cole ran a daycare out of it named Tender Loving Spirits Child Care but earlier this week police and child services found loaded weapons, daggers and alcohol all within reach of the kids along with a little boy bleeding from his head.

They responded because three young children were missing and there was a report of an injured child. When no one answered the door, an officer climbed through a window locating Cole who ordered him out, but police found 15 small children and two women female caregivers inside along with the bleeding child.

One mom, Takary Sims, just found out what happened. She sent her six-year-old son to the daycare who told her in the past that they were abusive.

"He just said that they hit the other kids and I was like, 'Do they hit you?' and he said no," she said.

Sims now blames herself for not looking into what he said.

"I'm a single mom and I'm trying to protect my son and I'm not," she said.

Meanwhile Cole has been arrested and charged with multiple felonies while the two other women are now at large.

Some neighbors had a feeling something wasn't right.

"There was a lot of little kids running around in the middle of the street. I mean it was even hard for me to get around the little kids because they'd be in the middle of the street and I had to honk my horn at them just to get them out of the way and everything," Rashard Warfield said.

"We would say, she's in the wrong neighborhood. One of these kids is going to get hurt," Charlie Anderson, a neighbor said.

It's unclear exactly how that little boy was injured but he is going to be okay.

Meanwhile the three missing children were located and now police are trying to find those two women, one of them they say is a known drug offender.